


Doll

by Duckyqueen



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Robots, Stabdads AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:49:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckyqueen/pseuds/Duckyqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Droog thinks about his daughter. Who was also a robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doll

It’s cold. The wind nips at his exposed cheeks. Droog curses. He wants to be at home. He wants to be in bed with a cup of tea and his cat curled on his lap.

He’s twenty blocks away. Twenty blocks. In below freezing temperatures.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He just scrunches his shoulders against the wind and continues the long walk.

Turning a corner, he spots her. He thinks his tired eyes are playing tricks on him. But, there she is, sitting on a heap of trash. She small, the size of a child. And he thinks that maybe it    
_is_   
 a real child. But the street light is bouncing dully off of her. Droog finds himself stepping closer.

“Hello?” He’s sure he must be crazy, calling out to something that he might be imagining. But slowly, so very slowly, she turns her head. Her eyes seem to be made of some kind of lighting element, and they glow faintly, a warm looking red. Her hair, made of what appears to be fine wires, is crusted with snow and ice, her elbow and knee joints are rusted. A metal plate has been sloppily bolted over the center of her chest.

“Hello,” the voice is flat and cold. Droog wonders if he is freezing to death. Because there is a girl, a little robot girl, and she is talking to him.

They stare at each other, Droog blinking back tears, caused by the wind, and the little girl is not moving, not blinking. She just sort of… sits on her heap. Like some kind of broken princess doll. He’s not sure what is happening to his head.

“What’s your name?” He doesn’t bother to kneel down. Because he still isn’t sure if he’s freezing to death or not.

“Aradia. Aradia Megido.”

“I’m Droog.”

The rest of the night is something of a blur. But it’s been years. But the booze makes everything blur together.

Droog threw a handful of Swedish fish into his mouth. Then knocks back some more hooch. The bitter flavors make him splutter and choke. He could be well on his way to blood poisoning.

He doesn’t care.

“Why do you have that plate on your chest?” It’s been a month. Maybe. Droog is eating breakfast and Aradia, as always is watching him.

“I ripped it out, my heart, I mean,” like everything she says, it is matter of fact. The way she talks- it leaves no room for questioning. She ripped out her own heart.

And they leave it at that.

It’s definitely affection that Droog has begun to feel for Aradia.

When he first bought her the high quality oil, for her joints, he tacked it up to wanting her to look presentable. It was embarrassing, he told himself, the freckles of rust on her chest plate and face.

The shit was not cheap. When he bought it for her a second time, and then the third, he had to admit to himself that maybe it might be a little more than wanting her to look good.

“Who did this to you?” Aradia was impassive as always. But Droog wasn’t. Because his girl. His girl is a robot. But before that, apparently, she was a little girl. A little girl who wanted to be an archaeologist. A girl who wanted a pet kangaroo. And why had it taken so long for her to tell him?

But she was dead. “Who did this to you?” He asked again, kneeling in front of her, looking into her eyes.

“Vriska,” she said simply. And of course. That little shit Vriska. The one who got Boxcar’s kid’s legs torn off. The little shit who pushes the other kids around. The little shit that belongs to that bigger shit, Snowman. He puts his hand on her cold shoulder.

“Make her pay,” he says softly.

Later, he gently wipes the blood out of the delicate gears of her hand. He occasionally stops and takes his cigarette out to tap away the ash. She watches him, and he can hear the gears whirring through her body. He stops and stares at her her now clean hand.

“ ‘atta girl,” is all he says.

Aradia says nothing.

He got into huge fucking, deep ass shit with Slick.

“I hate her as much as you do, but her little princess from hell is missing an eye,” Slick was apoplectic. “Her arm is fucking ruined. Snowman wants you to pay for the prosthetic. She wants a fucking Darkleer prosthetic. We can’t fucking afford that.” Droog says nothing, chain smoking silently, angrily. “Well, what the fuck do you have to say for yourself, you piece of shit?”

Droog says nothing, but the gears are turning rapidly in his head. Then it hits him.

“Your arm, you dumb shit,” he says, lighting a another cigarette.

“What about my fucking arm?” Slick looks read to murder him and Droog rolls his eyes.

“Who made your arm for you?” Droog says in a condescending tone. Slick’s good eye widened.

“It better be the finest fucking arm you can fucking make, shit stain.” Slick spits out finally.

Droog lets himself out.

He’s not the kind to usually go rushing to a friend’s aid, but Aradia is Tavros’ friend. Or something like a friend, anyway. She’ll sit with him when he and the other Crew members are in a meeting, sometimes listening to him prattle on about Fiduspawn or actually playing a game with him or helping him read, because the boy is twelve, but still reads at an elementary school level. Boxcar says something about dyslexia one night, after the meeting finishing and Tavros is stumbling his way through Peter Pan for the tenth time now.

But after hearing about the accident (and how did she even find out?), Aradia wants to see Tavros.

Droog doesn’t go into the room, letting Aradia clank in. He catches a glimpse of the boy, small a pale, the blankets frighteningly flat where his lower legs should be.

Boxcar is sitting in the hallway and takes the coffee that Droog offers him. He quiet and his eyes are a little red.

“They’re gonna take ‘im away from me,” the big man says miserably. Droog sits down next to Boxcar and awkwardly pats his broad shoulder.

“No, they’re not,” Droog says. “If anyone’s getting taken away from anyone, it’s Vriska. The bitch left her alone with Tavros and the car.” Boxcar is still silent. Droog feels uncomfortable. “If it’s any help, you’re a great dad.”

And Boxcar is a good dad. He takes almost two months off from work, much to Slick’s chagrin, to take care of Tavros.

Aradia, after Droog decides that her lessons are finished for the day (he’s homeschooling her), she goes to see him.

According to her, Tavros is sad and withdrawn. He lets her or Boxcar read to him, but he’s not really listening. He cries into his stuffed animals, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably and picks at his food.

Aradia is completely uncensored. She does not seem to have any sort of concept of keeping things private.

“Sometimes, he wishes he was a robot like me, so he wouldn’t have to feel anything,” Aradia states, as she answers math problems that Droog copied from a math book he found in the library. “Sometimes, he wishes he was dead.”

Though she apparently feels no emotion, Aradia is prone to small acts of kindness. Or her equivalent of kindness. She’s taken up cooking, she has a lot of free time on her hands, as Droog is a terrible teacher and rarely assigns her work. She’s a smart girl, and he figures that she can survive without algebra.

He comes homes some nights to find dinner waiting for him, Aradia in her usual chair, reading. At first, the flavoring is off. Mashed potatoes seasoned with sugar, instead of salt, for instance. It gets better, over time, but Droog wonders if she can remember taste. He wonders how long she’s been like this.

Somehow, she knows Sollux, Deuce’s kid. She knew him or he knew her. And when he first saw her, he ran up to her, in tears, hugging her metal body as tightly as he could.

It’s nearly three am when the bar finally kicks him out. He finds himself at Pickle Inspector’s, hammering on the door and shouting. The lights finally come on and the tall, thin man finally opens the door.

“Droog- what?” He’s so… adorable. So… fuckable. Droog, trying to stand on tiptoe, and failing, alcohol making his ability to stand straight the biggest fucking joke in the universe. He ends up smooching Inspector’s collar bone, pulling the cotton fabric of his pajama top in between his lips. “Droog, please, you’re, drunk.” Inspector is trying to push him off, but Droog pushes right back, making them stumble backwards into Inspector’s entrance hallway.

“I want…” They’ve somehow ended up in the dark living room, the street lights making sharp, clean, orange lines on the walls. Droog pushes Inspector onto the dingy couch. “I want you to fuck me.” He’s drunk. He’s dizzy. He sits on Inspector’s pelvis and grinds down.

Things blur a little after that.

And he’s never bottomed before, and Inspector is taking so much care, too much care, to prepare him. Too gentle, too sweet, too    
_loving_   
, for Droog. He wants to hurt. He wants to bleed. He wants

to die.

Because some stupid little robot girl made him feel love for the first time. Because some stupid little robot girl had to explode,    
_right. In. Front. Of. Him_   
. Because she had been his daughter. And he missed her. And because suddenly, life seemed so empty.

And he was crying now, drunk and sloppy and so fucking angry. Inspector is pulling his fingers out of him now and pulling him close to his bony, lanky body and is hushing him and rocking back and forth. It’s far too sweet for Droog, who much prefers bitter, black licorice to the sweet, cherry flavoring of the Inspector’s love.

He wakes up early, on Inspector’s couch, a blanket tucked tightly around him and the sun shining in his eyes. Inspector is fast asleep in a nearby arm chair. Droog sits up carefully. He’s back in his clothes, his coat hung over the arm of the couch and his shoes on the floor. His head is pounding. He gets on his coat and shoes as quietly as possible and leaves without waking the Inspector.

The apartment is so empty. He sits with his coffee and the paper, staring at the same meaningless sentence, over and over.

The doorbell rings. He buzzes whoever it is up, without checking to see who it is. It’s far to early for the rest of the crew, but maybe Inspector woke up and rushed to see if he was still alive?

Some is tapping on the door, each rap like a nail being tapped into Droog’s skull. He heaves himself up and unlocks the door.

There’s a girl, maybe about twelve years old, standing on his doorstep. Her clothing is torn, dirty. She has long, unruly black hair and she’s pale. Paler than Droog could have ever though it possible. She smiles at him, a thin, but none the less, warm smile.

“Hi,” She says.

Droog falls to his knees. He’s hung over and still a little drunk. And is he asleep? Is he aspirating in his own vomit, in an alley somewhere?

“I’m sorry I took so long to get back,” she says and Droog throws his arms around her.

Because his little girl is alive and warm and smiling.

And because he missed her, so much.

**Author's Note:**

> With Beautiful fanart by gaywalrus: http://gaywalrus.tumblr.com/post/12463868744


End file.
